My Robot Teacher

What does improv have to do with teaching in the age of AI? More than you might think. In this episode, we’re joined by Julie Simons (Applied Mathematics, UC Santa Cruz) and Pedro Morales (Mathematics, UC Santa Cruz) to talk about improv not as performance, but as pedagogy - and, more broadly, a philosophy of classroom life.

In this episode:

• Why active learning may be a stronger response to AI than surveillance or detection tools

• The case for improv as a philosophy of teaching, and why being wrong out loud might be the most important skill we can model for students

• The difference between productive struggle and demoralizing struggle

• Equity concerns around AI access, opt-out students, and who shapes these systems

• The "broken bottom rung" problem: as AI absorbs entry-level jobs, how do students build the experience to eventually reach senior ones?

• The remediation crisis in California: what happened when the CSU and community college systems 

My Robot Teacher is produced with support from the California Education Learning Lab.

My Robot Teacher is hosted by Sarah Senk and Taiyo Inoue, sponsored by the California Education Learning Lab, and produced by editaudio. 

📄 Full transcripts available on Substack: https://calearninglab.org/myrobotteacher/

🌐 More about the show: https://www.myrobotteacher.ai

📨 Email us! We'd love to hear from you! [email protected]

🔔 Subscribe for Extras: https://www.youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

Science education after ChatGPT: what happens when students can outsource the thinking, and still turn in something that looks right? In this episode of My Robot Teacher, CSU professors Sarah Senk and Taiyo Inoue talk with UC Davis biophysicist Jon Sack about AI literacy, scientific thinking, and how LLMs are reshaping both the classroom and the day-to-day reality of research.

If the most available “mentor” in a student’s life is an LLM optimized to validate, what happens to the virtues science depends on: tolerating disconfirmation, staying curious through failure, and separating confidence from evidence? And if AI can generate the output, what exactly are we teaching - especially when the point is conceptual understanding, not polished answers?

In this conversation, we explore:

• What AI literacy should mean in science classrooms (beyond “don’t cheat”)

• How to resist the reward of feeling right when LLMs produce fluent, plausible explanations on demand

• How to redesign assessment so students can’t simply outsource the thinking

• What “good” use looks like: prompting for falsification instead of praise, plus habits of verification and iteration

• What AlphaFold and protein design teach us about hypothesis overload, “hallucinations,” and selection under uncertainty

• The bigger meta-question: if we’re co-evolving with AI, how do we keep student agency intact?

Ultimately, Jon argues that resilience isn’t a soft skill in science—it’s the method: reality-testing what sounds plausible (including AI-generated ideas) and iterating without outsourcing the thinking.

Sponsored by the California Education Learning Lab.

💬 Drop your perspective in the comments. We may feature listener takes in a future episode.

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CHAPTERS

• 00:00-6:27 - Chapter 1 - Introduction: Claude Code Built My Canvas Course (Winter Break Experiment) 

• 6:28-10:14 - Chapter 2 - Jon Sack’s First ChatGPT Moment (and the “Too-Positive” AI problem)

• 10:15-12:44 - Chapter 3 - Resilience is the Core Skill in Science

• 12:45-16:08 - Chapter 4 - Scientific Method = Falsification: “Kill Your Darlings” and Reality Testing

• 16:09-19:26 - Chapter 5 - Conceptual Understanding vs. Outsourcing: When the Thinking is the Assignment

• 19:27-25:25 - Chapter 6 - AL Literacy for Students: Use Every Tool, Track Limits

• 25:26-28:22 - Chapter 7 - Inside Jon Sack’s Lab: Ion Channels and Stochastic Decisions

• 28:23-30:36 - Chapter 8 - Stochastic 101: Probability, Sampling, and Why LLMs Vary

• 30:37-38:55 - Chapter 9 - Are We Stochastic All the Way Down? 

• 38:56-44:07 - Chapter 10 - AlphaFold & Protein Design: Cheap Hypotheses, Hallucinations, Verification

• 44:08-53:30 - Chapter 11 - Co-evolving with AI: are tools optimizing around us, and are we changing around them?

• 53:31-1:01:22 Chapter 12 - Education After ChatGPT: Epistemic Virtues, Judgment, and Student Agency

What would it look like to teach AI literacy the way UC Berkeley teaches data science? hands-on, interdisciplinary, and open? In this episode of My Robot Teacher, Sarah and Taiyo talk with Eric Van Dusen from Berkeley’s College of Computing, Data Science, and Society about how the wildly successful Data 8: Foundations of Data Science course became a scalable model for modern computing education. Eric explains how connector courses and Jupyter notebooks help students from every major learn to code, work with real datasets, and think computationally. Then the conversation turns to small language models (SLMs) and what it means for students to actually “touch the model” - changing parameters, inspecting weights, and understanding tokens and temperature from the inside. Together, they sketch a vision for AI education in public universities: shared “AI sandbox” infrastructure, open tools, and a plan for teaching AI basics. 

Chapters

[0:00-4:05] Chapter 1 - Introduction: Is UC Berkeley's Data 8 the Blueprint for AI Education?

[4:06-13:52] Chapter 2 - Inside Berkeley’s Data Science “Connector Course” Ecosystem

[13:53-18:03] Chapter 3 - Jupyter Notebooks: Breaking the Textbook Paradigm with Live Code

[18:04-26:12] Chapter 4 - SLMs vs. LLMs: Why Smaller is Better for Teaching

[26:13-28:45] Chapter 5 - If AI Does the Work, What Skills Are Left?

[28:46-34:04] Chapter 6 - Why Public Universities Need an AI Sandbox

[34:05-37:44] Chapter 7 - on “Touching the Models” and Public Infrastructure

[37:45-40:20] Chapter 8 - Hey Nvidia! We’re not just consumers. 

[40:21-46:43] Chapter 9 - How AI Can Actually Make Teaching Better

[46:44-50:37] Chapter 10 - A Model for AI Literacy Education: Applying the Berkeley Data Model to AI Studies

[50:38-52:09] Chapter 11 - Join the Conversation on AI in Higher Ed

My Robot Teacher is hosted by Sarah Senk and Taiyo Inoue, sponsored by the California Education Learning Lab, and produced by editaudio. Video Editing by Starline Hodge, Audio Editing by Megan Hayward, and our Production Manager is Kathleen Speckert.

📄 Full transcripts available on Substack: https://calearninglab.org/myrobotteacher/

🌐 More about the show: https://www.myrobotteacher.ai

📨 Email us! We'd love to hear from you! [email protected]

🔔 Subscribe for Extras: https://www.youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

🎧 Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-robot-teacher/id1818032413

Follow us on:

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Tags/Keywords

AI in Education, Higher Education, Data Science, UC Berkeley, Data 8, Eric Van Dusen, Small Language Models, Jupyter Notebooks, EdTech, Artificial Intelligence, Python, SLM vs LLM, Connector Courses, AI Literacy, Public Education, Computational Thinking, Cal State University, CSU, My Robot Teacher Podcast, Sarah Senk, Taiyo Inoue, California Education Learning Lab, AI Infrastructure, Open Source Education, editaudio

AI in higher education, ChatGPT on campus, and Hollywood sci-fi all collide in this conversation with Jason Goldman.

When our students say they’re afraid to use their CSU-issued ChatGPT EDU account because it might be a sting operation, what stories about technology are already living in their heads?

In this episode of My Robot Teacher, Sarah and Taiyo sit down with Jason Goldman – co-host of the film podcast Escape Hatch (formerly Dune Pod), early Twitter employee, and former Chief Digital Officer of the White House – to unpack how Hollywood has shaped the way we think (and panic) about AI and its impact on our classrooms.

Together, they trace the path from Terminator, WarGames, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Her to ChatGPT EDU accounts in the CSU system to explore why Skynet-style apocalypse dominates faculty fears, what that narrative makes us miss (like quiet surveillance and parasocial attachment to chatbots), and where genuine educational benefits might actually lie.

Along the way, they discuss:

• Why Skynet is still a decent shorthand for the AI alignment problem

• What the “Torment Nexus” paradox reveals about tech culture and Silicon Valley

• How first-principles thinking can obscure slow, structural harms

• Parasocial attachment to AI companions, “AI therapy,” and mental-health risks

• Surveillance that doesn’t look like cameras, but like behavioral profiling and mood tracking

• What “public interest AI” might mean for universities and higher ed governance

For educators, this episode asks a core question: What narratives about AI are living in our heads – and how do they shape the stories we pass on to students?

⚠️ Content note: This episode includes discussion of suicide and self-harm in the context of AI safety and platform responsibility.

#AIinEducation #ChatGPT #HigherEd #SciFi #JasonGoldman #MyRobotTeacher

CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - 4:25 Chapter 1: AI Teddy Bears, Paperclip Nightmares, Faculty Fears

4:26 - 10:40 Chapter 2: Jason Goldman on Twitter, Google & Building the Social Web

10:41 - 20:27 Chapter 3: Apocalyptic AI: Terminator, WarGames, and Alignment Tropes

20:28 - 37:21 Chapter 4: Her, Parasocial Attachments, and Invisible Surveillance 

37:22 - 51:18 Chapter 5: Post-Tax Tech Bros, Silicon Valley, and Public Interest Universities

51:19 - 57:52 Chapter 6: What Educators Can Do To Shape AI Narratives in Higher Ed

My Robot Teacher is hosted by Sarah Senk and Taiyo Inoue, sponsored by the California Education Learning Lab, and produced by editaudio. Video Editing by Starline Hodge, Audio Editing by Megan Hayward, and our Production Manager is Kathleen Speckert.

📄 Full transcripts available on Substack: https://calearninglab.org/myrobotteacher/

🌐 More about the show: https://www.myrobotteacher.ai

📨 Email us! We'd love to hear from you! [email protected]

🔔 Subscribe for Extras: https://www.youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

🎧 Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-robot-teacher/id1818032413

Follow us on:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myrobotteacher/

• YouTube: youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

• X: x.com/myrobotteacher

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• Facebook: facebook.com/myrobotteacher

Tags/Keywords: Jason Goldman, AI in education, Terminator, Her, War Games, 2001 Space Odyssey, Silicon Valley, tech culture, social media, surveillance, parasocial relationships, ChatGPT, California State University, CSU, alignment problem, public interest technology, Sarah Senk, Taiyo Inoue, California Education Learning Lab, My Robot Teacher, editaudio, Escape Hatch podcast

Generative AI is reshaping classrooms and campuses, but with whose values, and at what cost? In this episode, Safiya Umoja Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppression and founder of the UCLA Center on Resilience and Digital Justice, joins Sarah and Taiyo to unpack why “neutral” AI isn’t neutral, why interdisciplinarity is hard but essential, and what a public‑interest technology ecosystem in higher ed could look like.

My Robot Teacher is hosted by Sarah Senk and Taiyo Inoue, sponsored by the California Education Learning Lab, and produced by editaudio. Video Editing by Starline Hodge, Audio Editing by Megan Hayward, and our Production Manager is Kathleen Speckert.

📄 Full transcripts available on Substack: https://calearninglab.org/myrobotteacher/ 

🌐 More about the show: https://www.myrobotteacher.ai

📨 Email us!  We’d love to hear from you!  [email protected]

🔔 Subscribe for Extras: https://www.youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

🎧 Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-robot-teacher/id1818032413

Follow us on: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myrobotteacher/

YouTube: youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

X: x.com/myrobotteacher

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/myrobotteacher.bsky.social

Facebook: facebook.com/myrobotteacher

Tags/ Keywords: Safiya Noble, Algorithms of Oppression, AI, ChatGPT, algorithmic bias, California State University, CSU, future of learning, public interest technology, human-centered AI, Sarah Senk, Taiyo Inoue, Cal Poly Maritime Academy, California Education Learning Lab, My Robot Teacher, editaudio 

In this episode, we talk with Madison Van Doren (AI Research & Strategy Manager at Appen) about the limits of AI translation, what AI safety practices like red-teaming reveal about model guardrails, and why humans in the loop remain essential. Madison explains adversarial prompting, how different large language models reflect the norms and incentives of their builders, and why common translation benchmarks reward surface accuracy while missing cultural nuance. At stake is a larger question: if AI mirrors our words but not our meanings, how can we trust it to serve as a safe partner in education and communication?

We also explore big questions for educators and students:

What skills should humans still master in an AI-saturated world?

What tasks can responsibly be offloaded to machines?

How should we redefine digital literacy for the age of generative AI?

CHAPTERS

0:00-1:30 - Chapter 1 Cold Open: Testing AI’s Limits

1:31-6:54 - Chapter 2: The Trouble with Teaching Machines Language

6:55-15:26  - Chapter 3: Adversarial Prompting: Breaking Models on Purpose

15:27-16:37 - Chapter 4 [Bridge]: Norms in, Norms Out

16:38-28:05 - Chapter 5 - Translation vs Localization: How Benchmarks Can Mislead 

28:06-35:19 - Chapter 6 - Humans in the Loop, New Literacies

35:20-39:04 - Chapter 7 - Closing Reflections: Endless Iteration, Evolving Language, and the Geopolitics of AI

My Robot Teacher is hosted by Sarah Senk and Taiyo Inoue, sponsored by the California Learning Lab, and produced by editaudio. Video Editing by Starline Hodge, Audio Editing by Megan Hayward, and our Production Manager is Kathleen Speckert.

📄 Full transcript: https://calearninglab.substack.com/p/my-robot-teacher-episode-5-transcript

🌐 More about the show: https://www.myrobotteacher.ai

📨 Email us!  We’d love to hear from you!  [email protected]

🔔 Subscribe for Extras: https://www.youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

🎧 Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-robot-teacher/id1818032413

Follow us on: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myrobotteacher/

YouTube: youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

X: x.com/myrobotteacher

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/myrobotteacher.bsky.social

Facebook: facebook.com/myrobotteacher

Tags/ Keywords: Large Language Models (LLMs), AI translation, AI localization, AI safety, Red-teaming AI, Adversarial prompting, Digital Literacy, AI in the classroom, Humans in the loop, AI misbehavior and guardrails, AI and cultural nuance, Teaching with ChatGPT, AI literacy for students and educators, Madison Van Doren, Appen, Linguistics, future of learning, human-centered AI, Sarah Senk, Taiyo Inoue, Cal Poly Maritime Academy, California Education Learning Lab, My Robot Teacher, editaudio 

How do we teach writing in the age of ChatGPT? On My Robot Teacher, hosts Taiyo Inoue and Sarah Senk talk with Carl Whithaus (Professor of Writing & Rhetoric; Director, University Writing Program, UC Davis) and Aparna Sinha (Associate Professor of Composition & Rhetoric, Cal Poly Maritime) about how AI is reshaping the composition classroom, and how educators can use LLMs to support critical thinking, metacognition, and student agency without flattening student voice.

Key topics include:

• AI Literacy: Why teaching AI is like teaching sex ed: avoidance only creates more problems.

• Process Over Product: Designing meaningful writing assignments that keep students invested.

• Reflection & Metacognition: Helping students evaluate AI feedback, spot bias, and make informed choices.

• The Future of Writing: From interdisciplinarity to multimodal literacies in a possible “post-literate” world.

00:00-2:51 Chapter 1 - Why Meaningful Assignments Beat AI Shortcuts

2:52-17:38 Chapter 2 - AI Literacy is the New Sex Ed

17:39-30:15 Chapter 3 - Foundational Skills

30:16-36:44 Chapter 4 - Why Writing Still Matters (and how to make it Mean Something)

36:45-41:40 Chapter 5 - Can We Imagine a Post-Literate non-Dystopian World?

🔔 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

🎧 Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-robot-teacher/id1818032413

📝 Read full transcripts + extras: https://calearninglab.substack.com/s/my-robot-teacher-podcast

🌐 More about the show: https://www.myrobotteacher.ai

📨 Email us!  We’d love to hear from you!  [email protected]

Follow us on: 

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myrobotteacher/

• YouTube: youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

• X: x.com/myrobotteacher

• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/myrobotteacher.bsky.social

• Facebook: facebook.com/myrobotteacher

Tags/ Keywords: AI in education, AI writing tools, teaching with AI, AI literacy, critical thinking, equity in education, composition pedagogy, code-meshing, ChatGPT in the classroom, higher education podcast, college writing, ChatGPT, generative AI, teaching and learning, peer feedback, UC Davis University Writing Program, Cal Poly Maritime Academy, PAIRR, California Education Learning Lab, Carl Whithaus, Aparna Sinha, Taiyo Inoue, Sarah Senk, My Robot Teacher, future of learning, editaudio 

What happens when AI forces us to confront what's broken about education? In this eye-opening conversation, Linguistics professor Pranav Anand (UC Santa Cruz) and English & Ethnic Studies professor Chesa Caparas (De Anza College) join Sarah and Taiyo, and argue that the panic over student "cheating" with ChatGPT is missing the real crisis.

Spoiler alert: The problem isn't that students are using AI - it's that our entire educational system has been designed around assessments that a machine can now ace in seconds. 

From the death of the five-paragraph essay to why "AI-proof" assignments are impossible, this episode challenges everything you think you know about teaching in the age of artificial intelligence.

Discover why Humanities professors might be the secret weapon against AI manipulation, how emotional literacy became more important than technical skills, and why the future of education isn't about stopping AI - it's about fundamentally reimagining what learning actually means.

00:00 - 1:55 Chapter 1 Introduction

1:55 - 15:02 Chapter 2 AI Literacy and Humanities Inquiry

15:03 - 31:35 Chapter 3 “What the Hell is Education For?” 

31:35 - 37:54 Chapter 4 The End of Writing as We Know It

37:54 - 48:16 Chapter 5 The New Critical Thinking Debate

🔔 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

🎧 Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-robot-teacher/id1818032413

📝 Read full transcripts + extras: https://calearninglab.substack.com/s/my-robot-teacher-podcast

🌐 More about the show: https://www.myrobotteacher.ai

📨 Email us!  We’d love to hear from you!  [email protected]

Follow us on: 

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myrobotteacher/

• YouTube: youtube.com/@myrobotteacher

• X: x.com/myrobotteacher

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Tags/ Keywords: AI literacy, Humanities, Higher Education, ChatGPT technology, podcast, generative AI, teaching, learning, assessment, critical thinking, Pranav Anand, Chesa Caparas, Taiyo Inoue, Sarah Senk, My Robot Teacher, future of writing, future of learning, editaudio

What does AI mean for how we teach and learn? In this episode of My Robot Teacher, we explore how ChatGPT is reshaping higher education.

In this episode of My Robot Teacher, co-hosts Taiyo Inoue and Sarah Senk share real stories and critical reflections on using ChatGPT and other large language models in higher education.

What becomes newly possible - and newly questionable - when thinking itself is distributed across humans and machines? We explore how AI is transforming writing instruction, interdisciplinary collaboration, coding, policy work, and even the value of drudgery.

Whether you’re skeptical, curious, or knee-deep in prompt engineering, this episode offers insight into how educators are adapting to the age of AI - and why the future of higher education depends on how we choose to engage with it..

🧠 Featuring:

• Practical classroom tips for integrating AI

• Reflections on academic integrity in the ChatGPT era

• Cross-disciplinary collaboration using LLMs

• Time-saving hacks for faculty service work

• Deep questions about writing, learning, and human thought

Transcript available:https://calearninglab.substack.com/s/my-robot-teacher-podcast

More info: https://calearninglab.org/myrobotteacher/

My Robot Teacher is hosted by Sarah Senk and Taiyo Inoue and produced by editaudio. Video Editing by Starline Hodge, Audio Editing by Megan Hayward, and our Production Manager is Kathleen Speckert. My Robot Teacher is funded by the California Education Learning Lab, which supports faculty-led projects that leverage technology tools and the science of human learning to foster student success in online and hybrid learning environments.

Tags: ChatGPT, AI in education, higher education, teaching with AI, AI tools for educators, large language models, prompt engineering, AI writing, faculty development, interdisciplinary collaboration, educational technology, edtech, digital pedagogy, college teaching, academic integrity, critical thinking, writing instruction, general education, My Robot Teacher

What happens when ChatGPT crashes into the classroom?

In this premiere episode of My Robot Teacher, Cal State University (CSU) professors Taiyo Inoue and Sarah Senk explore how faculty across public universities are reacting to the rise of generative AI in education. From panic to pedagogical adaptation, we dig into what resistance to AI really looks like - and why it often gives way to something stranger: habituation.

We talk about how large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are reshaping teaching, trust, and the purpose of assignments themselves. This isn’t just about prompts. It’s about power, policy, and the future of public higher ed.

In this episode:

• We take Yale’s Ben Glaser on a ride in a Waymo driverless car
• Talk about UX, AI adaptation, and design thinking with Hana Zeydens (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative)
• Hear reflections from Cal Maritime faculty and leadership on how AI is already impacting them

Keywords: AI in education, ChatGPT in the classroom, generative AI and higher ed, resistance to AI, teaching with ChatGPT, AI panic, large language models, autonomous vehicles, Waymo, CSU professors, public universities and AI, AI in public education, education after the prompt, pedagogy and AI, higher education and AI disruption, future of learning

Transcript available:https://calearninglab.substack.com/s/my-robot-teacher-podcast

More info:https://calearninglab.org/myrobotteacher/

My Robot Teacher is hosted by Sarah Senk and Taiyo Inoue and produced by editaudio. Video Editing by Starline Hodge, Audio Editing by Megan Hayward, and our Production Manager is Kathleen Speckert.